A year after our first baby, we welcomed another baby girl. It’s been a whirlwind journey. I had visions of continuing this blog after the first baby, but took an unplanned hiatus. I didn’t have anything to say some days. Other days I had so much to say, I was too overwhelmed to know where to start. Every time I tried I couldn’t find the words.

I wanted to express what it was like to be pregnant, to give birth, to become a Mum, to breastfeed and raise a baby while trying to beat ED into submission.

I hope to tell those stories from not one, but two pregnancies now. I made it through both of them without restricting or bingeing or purging. They were both so different and I can’t pretend that I was ED free entirely because the running dialogue in my head throughout reminded me that in the shadows it was lurking there, in the bright moments, the extreme joyousness, the overwhelming and the trying times, I was never far from it. Even now it dogs me.

I will begin again to speak of it. I will tell the story, the dark parts that I wish my daughters will never know.

I never meant to not write for seven months. Seven months…it sounds so much longer than it has been. I had so much to say, too much really, and in the end I couldn’t find the words so I stayed silent. It is hard to chronicle a pregnancy with an eating disorder. I wanted to, but I will have to write about it in hindsight instead.

My daughter is here. We are both well. That is all I wanted to say for now.

After a little hiatus, I have decided to write again. I am pregnant again and have made it to the second trimester, so we are sharing our news with everyone. After the miscarriage, this pregnancy seemed tenuous and frought with anxiety. There was nothing anyone could say to put my mind at ease that this baby would stay with me on earth.

In November we discovered some medical complications that resulted in a surgery. The last 2 months have been a whirl of hospital visits: surgeons, radiologists, obstetricians, enodcirnologists, nurses, doctors and of course myriad tests: ultrasounds, x-rays, MRIs, blood tests, weight, blood pressure, heart rate…

The list goes on, but nothing measured the anguish and suffering in the mother’s heart.

Today I am recovering from surgery which went well. Baby is thriving from what we can see on ultrasounds. Through all of this, I have continued in the ED recovery program where I see a case manager, medical doctor, nutritionist, psychologist and occupational therapist. As much as I want this child more than anything in this life, I cannot describe the distress of gaining weight as someone with an eating disorder.

Since we confirmed the pregnancy, I have not once binged, purged, restricted or over exercised. The desire is there constantly, but I felt that I could not do that to my unborn child and live with the consequences. It is strange that not taking care of myself has never concerned me, but I cannot hurt my unborn child by continuing with my ED.

I finally got tired of my reflection. My boyfriend posted photos of us from a weekend away on social media and someone had the audacity to ask me (not-so-subtly) if I was expecting. I know I have put on weight since the miscarriage. I am guesstimating 7-10lbs from how I look and how my clothes don’t fit. Honestly, I am too terrified to step on my scale until I have dropped some weight.

After the weekend and the hurtful comments, I looked at my pudgy arms in the mirror while I was applying eye liner. They have become soft and shapeless like my heart after I lost the baby. “Enough,” I told myself. “It’s enough now.”

I’ve been back to gym 3 days in a row. There was no shoe shopping involved or sandwich motivation (where I buy myself food for going to workout). I felt more energetic, less depressed. Perhaps this was the turning of a corner? I don’t want to get my hopes up too soon. I have found that this grief knows no end; some days I am fine and others I am broken.

I have binged once and purged once. I have actively restricted a few times. I knew that eventually I would get back to “normal”, but so far it hasn’t been so vicious. Part of me wants a healthy body to have another baby and part of me just wants my agony to show itself in bones.

The truth is, one day I was pregnant and my life had changed forever. A few weeks later I was no longer pregnant and my life could not go back to what it was before. There is no normal after that.

It has been 2 months since the miscarriage…actually more, but I try not to count the days since my baby left.

I finally went back to the ED recovery program and saw my case manager today. She had started to call to see why I had disappeared. I filled her in on the miscarriage and she suddenly understood why I had taken a hiatus from my life. She acknowledged the severity of my loss and the depth of my grief. She actually had some powerful thoughts to share with me. It made me glad that I had gone back because I really do like her.

I was ready to shut my case file and to tell her that I am wasting her time. I wanted to tell her that right now I cannot focus on ED recovery because I cannot function. She came to that conclusion without me having to say so. She was in happy disbelief that I am not actively bingeing or purging or restricting. She told me that without a doubt, the loss of the child I wanted has refocused my mind onto what is really important for me. Blaming myself aside, she said that being able to give up ED behaviours the instant I knew I was pregnant, told her that I was ready to leave this part of me behind for a greater cause. As far as she is concerned any step forward is progress.

As I sat there and wept, she told me that she felt God had sent this baby to save me from my ED. She said that the spirit of this baby was here to make me well. She said that baby would say to me, “mum, I need you to be healed for me”. The more I thought about it, the more profound it seemed.

At the end of our session she gently reminded me to make new appointments with the team at the clinic and to continue to see the doctor, dietician and psychologist regularly even if I felt like my ED was in limbo. More importantly, she offered to help support me through this and to leave the ED out of it if all I want to talk about is my baby. She told me to allow myself the right to grieve: to be alright with being sad or tired or depressed, to be fine with not wanting to go to the gym and go shoe shopping instead, to make peace with the fact that this is a process I have to go through instead of fighting against it.

I went there today to thank her for her time and to walk away and instead she gave me an incredible gift.

Lately I have developed a loathing for going to gym which I have never really had before. I am so disinterested in it. In fact since the miscarriage, I have lost interest in a lot of things I used to care about.

This week I avoided going to the gym by using every excuse I could think of:

I’m tired

I’m depressed

I think I’m getting sick

I should put in more time at work

I feel sad

On several occasions I got into my car to go to work. Once I even ended up at my gym. I parked my car and walked into the mall instead of the gym. I bought two pairs of shoes. I bought lunch and a coffee. I walked past the gym, got back in my car and went back to work where I ate my feelings.

I just don’t care anymore. My size and weight are distressing to me, but not enough to do anything about it. I lay in bed the other night not wanting to do anything. I don’t want to go to work or see friends or make plans. I just want nothingness; the absence of everything except perhaps a book and a bottle of wine.

I have not really had much to say about ED in the last 2 months. Here is why:

I had a miscarriage.

I haven’t been able to talk about it.

When it happened, I lost my appetite and didn’t eat for a week. I cried and sobbed and drank myself to sleep every night for a month. I binged a few times. I ate “normally” and I just existed for the last little while. I had experienced weight gain after the miscarriage, but not during the pregnancy – I wasn’t far enough along. I hated myself for what happened and of course, I blamed myself for what happened.

My boyfriend was supportive and loving and caring. He put up with the snot and sobbing and staring into outer space like a zombie. He comforted me every night while I fell apart. He held me when I woke up screaming from nightmares about dead babies. He flew my mother here to help me cope (yes, her being here had nothing to with my birthday so I feel even shittier about being ungrateful). He ran me bubble baths and tried to shield me from adverts for diapers or someone giving birth in a movie.

For two months I have been depressed. It is a kind of depressed that I have never known before.

In the beginning it was hard enough to function while dealing with the physical repercussions of the miscarriage. I lost so much blood and was in so much pain. I was physically weak and exhausted. It was all-consuming. I couldn’t think about anything else except the baby we might have had. Miscarriage is common. I read all about it. I read everything I could. It still didn’t prepare me for what I went through or how devastated I am.

Now, a couple of months later, the physical symptoms are gone and I am left with a hollow in my heart. I would have been 16 weeks along today.

ED has barely featured since and I am not sure why. I still think about it. I stare at my much heavier reflection at ballet and am repulsed. I have to squeeze into my size 6 pants and it upsets me, but I don’t do anything. I eat in terms I can only describe as “normal”, keeping in mind that I don’t know what normal is. I am not actively starving, bingeing or purging. I am drinking a lot. I seem to have become apathetic and indifferent to food. I am unconcerned with anything except trying to get through my day with my sanity intact. Work has been overly stressful and dramatic. My boyfriend and I have had some more relationship turmoil (as usual revolving around the mother of his youngest child). We continue to not move forward. At the end of the day, I cannot cope with any of it. I cannot deal with anything.

I have been trying to get back into a gym routine over the last few weeks. I have little incentive or motivation to exercise other than I know endorphins are good for depression. I just don’t really seem to care and I cannot make myself care. I have thought about going to see a counsellor. On that note, I dropped out of my ED treatment that I was in. There didn’t seem much point in going.

So I have nothing to update on the ED front. I ate cucumbers and hummus at work today. Last week when my anxiety over our relationship was much higher, I ate nothing. Tonight I ate 2 bowls of pasta and didn’t purge. On the weekend when we went on a happy family vacation, I ate 3 meals a day. There seems to be no rhyme or reason.

When my coworker announced her pregnancy this week and her due date 10 days after mine would have been, I hid in my office. I feel a numbness. Other than being depressed, I haven’t felt much else except the inability to cope. My anxiety has been escalating lately over work and relationship stuff and that usually sends my ED into a frenzy, but I have barely reacted if the truth be told. All I want to do is sleep. I don’t mean kill myself because I have no suicidal tendencies at all. I just want to sleep for a very long time.

My mum has been here for nearly 2 weeks. As much as I love having her here, it has added a lot of stress. Work has been extremely busy and ridiculously unpleasant. If I am at work, I am worried about my mum being left alone all day doing nothing. If I take time off work to spend with my mum, I am wracked with guilt about not being at work. I can’t seem to balance everything. I seem to be failing miserably and driving myself crazy with anxiety instead of enjoying my time with her.

I don’t know what to do. I have a performance review at work tomorrow which I am dreading even though my boss has never indicated to me that he is not happy with my work. I always anticipate the worst. I have considered resigning this week from the stress even though I don’t want to leave my job. Last night I cried myself to sleep because I was so overwhelmed by everything. I have been quite depressed for reasons I will explain another time.

I am fat and discontent. I keep eating and drinking trying to escape from the anxiety that will not ebb.